


A Final Goodbye

by Audlie45



Series: Crimson Ends [1]
Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Angst, Crimson Peak Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5015125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audlie45/pseuds/Audlie45
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My epilogue to Crimson Peak</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Final Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m a big baby and cried from the end of the movie to now and I wanted to make a happier ending but ended up with an epilogue with sadness. My writing’s not great so you may not feel the feels I felt writing it but I hope you at least get the gist of it. BE WARNED AGAIN OF SPOILERS!
> 
> So... UPDATE! This has been beta'd by my good friend Eternal Fangirl! So big thanks to her ☺️

After returning to America, Edith jumped back into her writing. She had a new perspective on romance and love and was able to add a different aspect of it to her book. It was different, ugly and hard. And it sold.

Not that she needed the money, of course. With her father’s inheritance she could have lived well for the rest of her life, but that was just completely against her nature. She needed to make her own path, her own name, make ‘Edith Cushing’ a legacy in itself, not the unfortunate daughter of a deceased industrialist who was swept away to England by a Baronet only to come back a widow.

Alan’s mother always made sure to bring up their previous conversation--in which Edith had said she preferred to die a widow than a spinster--whenever she was in earshot. Edith was already very good at ignoring her barbs but even more so now that she was becoming successful in her career. Alan would always try to silence--or at least lessen--his mother’s vitriol by keeping them away from each other at all costs.

Upon their return, Alan had begun making more advances toward Edith, making it well known that he was looking to further their relationship. Having suffered by being too soft in his approach before, Alan had managed to pick up his initiative, causing him to be more forward with his intentions.

Edith quickly shut him down as soon as it became apparent to her. She did not want love. She did not want romance. Her love was her writing and her stories. She needn’t more than that lest it distract her from her work.

Unfortunately, her work became a strain to keep up with. After four months back home she found herself pregnant, a miracle and a possible curse. Thankfully, her handmaids were the most attentive and helpful women around and made things much easier. They were attentive, letting her focus on work while trying to fight off morning sickness and backaches.

What surprised her most was that even after all she had been through physically, the baby survived. The poison, the fall from the stairs and the long travel in the cold back from Allerdale Hall would surely have caused some damage to her or the baby at some time, but everything seemed perfectly fine. Another thing she worried about was that the child may come out with the evil intention inside them, considering the father and the… aunt.

Alan had made one more attempt at Edith’s affections, stating how he could at least help with raising the child even though it was not his, and again Edith declined. This was her child and her life. As good a friend as Alan was, he was not the father, nor the man she loved. She did not need him to intervene, but he would always be welcome to visit. He was still a friend after all.

On the day Carter Thomas Sharpe was born, there was a cold feeling around the entire house. She had given birth in her room on her own bed and could feel that something or someone was in the room with them, observing. That night while the midwife had gone to the main room with the child so Edith could sleep, she felt a hand move from her forehead to her cheek in a slow caress, waking her from her sleep. When she opened her eyes, startled, the hand was gone but a faint white smoke was swirling slowly and disappearing.

For the first week Edith was forced to stay in bed but she quickly grew restless. The midwife nonetheless ordered her to stay for the required three weeks of convalescence. The midwife was wonderful to her. She and the maids would make her comfortable and help tend to the child. Edith was fed up with the resting, and was constantly caught roaming around the house with little Carter, showing him things and conversing with him when all he could contribute were coos and yawns. The midwife quickly gave up on forcing Edith to do anything knowing she would only be defied. Her midwife just made sure to have one of the maids at her side at all times.

Once it was time for the midwife and her attendants to leave, Edith was relieved. They had constantly been scolding her for straining herself when she felt fine doing the things she was doing. Her own handmaids were perfectly capable of helping her with anything she absolutely couldn’t do.

Being a mother and a publishing writer was difficult at times but for the most part a task she could handle it all. It was a challenge she all too gladly accepted, and enjoyed every minute. She loved having her play times with Carter and taking him with her to small events.

His black curls always started a frenzy of gossip everywhere Edith went, but quickly died down with how unashamed and confident she and her son were together. She always made a point to never regret what happened.

She loved Thomas, even after what had happened. She knew that he loved her back and died trying to save her, so in her eyes their child was not a mistake. If things had been more ideal, there was a possibility that they would have been able to have a real life together. She’d like to think that Thomas, despite his flaws, would have been a good father.

Carter was growing to be a fine young boy. At two, he was already taking things apart and laying them out in organized piles along the floor. By the time he was three, he was putting things back together but not always getting it right. At four, he was a master at deconstructing and rebuilding any device he could get his hands on. Edith was so proud.

On Carter’s sixth birthday she had one of his inventions patented. He actually started earning revenue. The boy was as crafty as his father but also had the stubborn smarts of his mother, never backing down from other children who would make fun of him for being so attached to his mother, or for the oil stains forever on his hands.

Alan always seemed to be around, being a surrogate uncle of sorts, occasionally spoiling Carter. Specially whenever Edith got frustrated about her typewriters constantly getting left with missing parts. That happened specifically whenever she didn’t let him have a second desert. At first Alan had avoided the dark haired boy, but once he saw Edith’s tenacity in caring for him he was instantly caught under the boy’s thumb.

One night, a few months after Carter’s ninth birthday, Edith awoke suddenly, feeling a strange pull. She hadn’t felt anything like this since her last encounter with the ghosts of Allerdale Hall.

This pull was strong and yearning. She got up from her bed wearing a thick nightgown to fend off the cold, and made her way to her study. There she found Carter out of his bed even at the late hour, in the middle of the room, playing with one of his inventions. Frustration building in her, Edith moved with quick steps to him. She gasped as she stopped dead in her tracks, finally getting a look at what he was playing with.

It was the miniature of Thomas’invention, the machine he had made, whirring lightly with small puffs of steam emitting from its exhaust.

It took Edith some time to find her voice. “Carter, dear, where did you get that?”

He answered without turning around. “It was on the table in the sitting room and a voice told me I needed to bring it here where there was more space. It’s fascinating, isn’t it mother?”

He finally turned around with a wide grin plastered on his face, one which was normally saved for after he’d built something new that worked perfectly. “Who does it belong to, mother? I must know, it’s so well built. Could you imagine a full scale of this?”

“Carter, go to bed please.”

“But mother I was j-”

“Go to bed!” Edith hated shouting at Carter, and had only twice before done it, but this situation was too heavy for him to be involved. Any one of those specters could be around waiting to come out writhing and spewing words of warning. Or even Lucille in a jealous rage, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, if her ghost could actually harm her. With all her hate she probably could.

Carter reluctantly stood and headed for the door leading to his room. “Sorry, mama.”

When he was gone, she tentatively moved towards the little contraption. It sputtered and whirred, reminding her of her husband’s full-sized model digging through the blood-red ground.

Tears were falling down her cheeks before she realized she was even crying. Falling inelegantly to her knees beside the machine she felt her insides ache at the thought of her love.

She’d never really allowed herself to mourn him. The trek out of that horror and the bumpy ride back to the nearest town was filled with physical pain until she got to a doctor for full recovery. After coming back to America she’d delved straight into writing and even through the emotional turbulence of her pregnancy she never once cried for Thomas.

Now, here in her study, kneeling next to the small piece of machinery that made her realize that Thomas was as much the dreamer as she was, she allowed herself to cry. His dreaming was what had sparked the flame that became her love. She cried not only for what happened to her, but for Thomas. For the life they never got to have. For the life he died trying to attain.

“My dear Edith.” Came a soft but distorted voice from behind her.

Startled, Edith turned around quickly, nearly toppling the small machine.

“Th--- Th-- Thomas?” Edith said with a sob.

Floating above the floor about three feet away from her was the ghost of Sir Thomas Sharpe. White hair, skin and clothes, yellow eyes and white smoke lazily waving away from the wounds at his stomach, chest and face.

Standing quickly, Edith rushed to him, lightly feeling for his chest in wonder, knowing it would not be solid but willing herself to pretend that he was there. She looked up into his blazing eyes, hiccupping mild sobs.

“How… how are you here? I thought your ghost was trapped in the house.”

“I became bound to my inventions. I managed to slither my way to the model and compel whoever touched it to bring me here.” His voice was slow and distorted. “I arrived not long after you in a package, but one of your maids had hidden it away in hopes you would not find it since it bore my name. On this day I compelled her to bring me out.”

“What da--“ Stopping herself, Edith realized the day. It was the anniversary of the fall of Allerdale Hall. This day, ten years ago, her life had been torn apart and laid out to be put back together. She’d lost her husband and an enemy but gained a new respect for life.

“I’ve been watching. Seeing you become a wonderful mother... and our son,” He stopped there as his features showed sadness, anger, happiness and regret, all rolled into one heartbreaking expression. “Our son. Watching him become an inventor.” A long, low moaning sob escaped his lips. He was profoundly upset with himself for his death but proud that his heir inherited his knack for building things. It was a bittersweet agony that his ghostly moans could only barely express.

“He’s a lot like you, Thomas. He’s a genius with his hands and can build nearly anything.”

“But he has your drive and confidence.” His eyes showed love and admiration she hadn’t seen since the first times he’d looked at her ten years ago. “He has the life I would never have been able to provide. As well off as you two are, I could not stop myself from feeling the ache of longing to be with you and him. My true family.”

“Thomas. We will always be here. Dead or not, you are still my husband and a part of this family.”

“Dearest Edith, I can no longer be here. My spirit tires but I stayed to see you and Carter living. I need to move on. My spirit was not made to stay and linger here for so long. I feel the pull constantly but I resist. I love you, Edith, and please tell Carter I love him and how so very proud I am of the man he’s becoming.”

“Wait, Thomas!”

“I love you.”

And he was gone in a cloud of white dust. Falling to her knees once again, Edith sobbed long and hard. She didn’t hear the footsteps coming closer until a hand lay on her back. She looked up quickly, hoping beyond hope that Thomas had managed something, instead seeing a young Thomas. Her Carter, with worry etched on his face.

“Mother, who was that?”

Turning her face to where Thomas’ specter had been, she fought back her urge to scream and wail at the pain in her chest. “That was a ghost of my past come back to heal old wounds.”


End file.
